1.24.2010

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To those who would say there is nothing "secret" about the publicly available Oxford English Dictionary (or, if you're lookin to impress someone, as I nearly always am, "the OED"), and to those that would say that nonchalantly browsing the website for an hour does not count as "non-fiction" or "educational" reading, I say to you: dog's bollocks.

Wedged discretely between the classic "dog and bone" (n.) and the more contemporary and colloquial-sounding "dog-sit" (v.), lies the perplexing and innocuous entry for "dog's bollocks." Citing usage from 1949, the OED (see link below) defines dog's bollock as:

dog's bollocks n. (also dog's ballocks) Brit. coarse slang (a) Typogr. a colon followed by a dash, regarded as forming a shape resembling the male sexual organs (see quot. 1949) (rare); (b) (with the) the very best, the acme of excellence; cf. the cat's whiskers at CAT n.1 13l, bee's knee n. (b) at BEE n.1 5b.


This is why I like being a student. It not only presents me with ample time to waste scrounging around the linguistic heap that is the OED (maybe get a little credit for it? maybe a 1 c.r. here, or a little thesis proposal there?), but it also automatically entitles me to a free subscription to the OED online, without which it would be impossible for me to purposefully, nevermind casually, come across this little bit of gold for myself. And by gold I mean "vulgar, 60- year old emoticons."

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http://dictionary.oed.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/cgi/entry/50068172/50068172se221single=1&query_type=word&queryword=dog%27s+bollocks&first=1&max_to_show=10&hilite=50068172se221